Chinese government says Tiananmen papers are fake

Student protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989

January 9, 2001
Web posted at: 5:47 AM HKT (2147 GMT)

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Papers released in the United States outlining the decisions Chinese leaders took in ordering a crackdown on democracy demonstrators in 1989 are fake, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday.

"Any attempt to play up the matter again and disrupt china by the despicable means of fabricating materials and distorting facts will be futile," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao.

The papers were purportedly smuggled out of China by a disaffected civil servant and were published over the weekend.

The documents are said to be based on minutes of secret meetings, intelligence reports, and logs of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's phone calls.

They detail conversations Deng, who ordered the Tiananmen crackdown, had with other Communist leaders.

Zhu said that Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government believed the steps taken were "highly necessary to the stability and development of China."

VIDEO

CNN's Rebecca MacKinnon finds the the book is not likely to spur reforms

He said the conclusions the CPC and the government took regarding the disturbance "would not change."

Beijing has long argued the protests were an anti-government rebellion that had to be crushed to safeguard economic growth and communist rule. It has ignored calls for an inquiry into the crackdown that began June 4, 1989, in which hundreds were killed and thousands arrested in a nationwide effort that also froze debate about political reforms.